Of all the words spent discussing, analyzing, explaining, and picking apart Lakers-Suns, a good number of them have concerned Channing Frye. The Suns’ bench on the whole has had their moments, but Frye is the one reserve that has yet to really contribute with his most valuable skill: shooting. Channing has made just one of his 20 shot attempts in this series, and has averaged just 1.3 points in 15.4 minutes per game.

So naturally, after seeing how much of a positive influence Frye’s three-point shooting can be on the Suns’ offense in the regular season and the two prior playoff series, fans and writers have been a bit critical of Channing’s performance over the last three games. It’s hard to shield him from any of it; 1-for-20 is impressively awful, especially considering the Lakers’ blatant disregard of the “threat” of Frye’s shooting on the pick-and-roll. It’s gotten to the point where L.A.’s defenders often give Channing plenty of room to fire, and he still can’t connect.

“You know what guys, to be honest I’m kind of disappointed,” Frye
said. “First you said we couldn’t beat them and now you’re talking
about a lot of negativity. I think we need to look at how well Robin
[Lopez] is playing, how well Amar’e [Stoudemire] is playing. My baskets
– yeah, they would’ve helped. Yeah, I haven’t been shooting very well.
But I feel like I’m doing other things better, helping out defensively
and getting as many boards as I can. So for you guys to talk about me
shooting, that’s kind of – there’s better stories to write about than
me shooting.”

Berger’s response was the perfect one: “With all due respect, that’s for me to decide. Your job is to make shots.” Zing!

Frye clearly underestimates the consumption rate of available NBA content in print and online, especially during the NBA playoffs. Of course people are writing on Amar’e’s huge Game 3 performance or Robin Lopez’s fantastic play. Those angles are covered, covered, and covered again. That may provide an interesting morsel, but it doesn’t give the whole story of Game 3 or any other, and that’s where Frye comes in.

Every player making a significant impact on the game deserves this kind of treatment, and throwing up 19 errant shots out of 20 certainly qualifies. His justifications also come off as a bit defensive, especially when considering that his rebounding really hasn’t been above average and his defense far from notable. I’m sure Frye is trying to make his mark on this series, he’s just not doing it. That’s the story.

This isn’t an issue of effort, but one of execution. A hot shooter has gone deathly cold, and Phoenix’s number of productive bench players has dropped from five to four.

UPDATE 2:06 pm: Both Andrew Bynum and Phil Jackson said after Lakers practice on Monday that Bynum will play and start in Game 4.

Again, not a shock. Bynum’s knee is not getting better or worse by playing, it’s a matter of pain management. A game or two off is not going to help him.

9:31 pm. Andrew Bynum has a torn meniscus in his right knee, a little bit of cartilage that is becoming a big problem for the Lakers.

It is clearly bothering him. Bynum is not playing well — in Game 3 he had one nice post move to go with the fouls he picked up so quickly all game. On a night Amare Stoudemire was aggressive and attacking the basket, the Lakers needed Bynum’s length to protect the rim.

And he sat with a sore knee and foul trouble.

Maybe sitting him out more and giving him some rest would help. When asked after the game Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he had thought about it, and that he would talk to Bynum about it between games.

Bynum said he was not sitting out.

The problem is, rest is not going to make it better, knee surgery is. Minor knee surgery, but surgery nonetheless. The Lakers need Bynum — not as much in this series but in the next one against the Celtics, if they make it. Bynum has not developed a reputation as a quick healer, surgery would mean the end of his season. Bynum doesn’t want that.

But rest is not helping. The candid Bynum — maybe the most open of the Lakers players — said after the Lakers had a week off leading up to the Suns series that his knee felt worse, not better. Rest has not done it any good before. There were three days off between games two and three in the Suns series and he looked worse. Rest is not the answer.

Bynum is better — even when healthy — when he can use is 7’0″, 285-pound frame to bang. The mobility and quickness of the Suns can expose his defensive rotations on the best of days.

Sunday night, Bynum was in foul trouble because he was late on rotations (and because Amare Stoudemire was the aggressor). He was late in part because his knee is very sore and he moves more slowly. It’s a problem.

One of the things that made the second round of this year’s playoffs so bizarre was the prevalence of sweeps. It’s incredibly difficult for any NBA team to sweep another regardless of talent, because beating the same opponent four times in a row requires such an incredible level of focus and consistency. It just doesn’t happen all that often, and the losing team typically wins a game or two to delay the outcome even it it seems inevitable.

I wouldn’t say that a Laker win in the Western Conference Finals is inevitable, but one can’t help but wonder if last night’s Suns’ victory was a temporary diversion rather than real resistance. Phoenix won the game while playing solid — but not dominant — basketball, and is that really good enough to compete with this particular Lakers team?

It’s a complicated question, admittedly, and at its core, it begs us to analyze the sustainability of the Suns’ efforts on both ends of the court.

Offensively, one could actually argue that Phoenix survived (and thrived) in spite of two rather notable obstructions: the Suns shot poorly from three as a team and the usually solid bench was nowhere to be found. The reserves (including sharpshooters Channing Frye, Jared Dudley, and Goran Dragic) went 0-fer in 11 attempts from long range, but the starters didn’t really offer much long-range support, either. Jason Richardson made four of the team’s five attempts, which means that the rest of the starters (or really, Steve Nash and Grant Hill) weren’t doing all that much to balance the court.

On this night, it was probably for the best. The Suns fed Amar’e Stoudemire over and over, and he produced. Not only did Amar’e put up 22 field goal attempts, but he got to the line 18 times, and the Suns as a team shot 42 free throw attempts. Phoenix can survive a rainy day with that kind of scoring coming from the free throw line, but any free throw total that high will be met with some skepticism. That said, while Game 3 featured the same questionable calls that can be found in just about any NBA contest, this result was not entirely without precedent.

In Game 2, the Suns shot 32 free throws to the Lakers’ 22. The difference in attempts between the teams in that game may not have been as profound as the Game 3 differential, but the pace was notably higher in Game 3 (98 possessions to 92 in Game 2), and both Amar’e Stoudemire and Steve Nash were far more assertive within the Phoenix offense on Sunday night. They combined for 13 attempts in Game 2 and 25 attempts in Game 3, which is more than enough to compensate for the generous bump of the team totals.

I wouldn’t say anyone should expect the Suns to shoot 42 free throws again in this series, but if Stoudemire, Nash, and the Suns remain aggressive on offense, they can still boast a considerable free throw advantage against the Lakers.

The bench will bounce back, the three-point shooting will no doubt return, and the total free throw attempts will drop slightly but could still be an advantage for Phoenix. All in all, there’s no reason to think the Suns can’t be even better offensively, which is good news for an already confident Phoenix team playing at home in Game 4.

On defense…well, that’s where the news isn’t quite so good. From the second quarter onward, the Suns relied on a zone defense that produced some impressive results. The Suns’ Game 3 fortunes turned on a time, with the zone sparking a 15-2 run going into halftime that gave Phoenix a seven-point lead. It was fun to watch the Suns’ defenders not only active and involved, but making the right rotations to prevent exploitations of the zone. Brilliant, brilliant move by Alvin Gentry.

Each defensive scheme has its own weaknesses though, and the zone is certainly no exception. The zone was so problematic for the Lakers not because it was perfectly executed (although the Suns certainly did a stellar job relative to their usual man-to-man defense, which has characteristically featured some poor rotations), but precisely because it was a zone. They settled for too many contested threes, didn’t properly utilize one of the best high post centers in the game in Pau Gasol, and didn’t employ the right kind of ball and player movement.

The Laker offense didn’t make any significant adjustments against the zone, and thus their usual movement was stifled. Kudos to L.A. for not stopping the ball, but they need to replace their usual cuts and slashes with moves more effective against the zone: baseline movement, overloading a player’s zone, etc. With NBA versatility, size, and speed at a coach’s disposal, it’s really only a matter of time before any NBA team cracks the zone, much less one with this much talent from coach down. Phil Jackson and his staff will work with the Lakers and hit the film room hard to show exactly how to attack the Suns’ zone D, and unfortunately for Phoenix, it’s that simple.

Andrew Bynum may not be the best counter to the zone, but any lineup featuring Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and Lamar Odom is more than capable of getting easy shots against it. That’s not meant to be a slight against Phoenix’s defense in Game 3, which was much improved, but rather as a general statement concerning the limitations of the scheme. The zone can be incredibly effective over the course of a single game, but if the Suns are relying on it to win them the series (as they may be forced to, considering how ineffective their man defense has been), they’re in trouble.

That makes Phoenix’s Game 3 win a bit tough to replicate. Phoenix’s offensive potency has never really been in question in this series, but the Suns’ ability (or inability) to defend the versatile and efficient Laker offense sits in the spotlight during every game. That’s where these games (and this series) need be won, and unfortunately, the Phoenix zone is vulnerable to the law of diminishing returns; the more the Suns use the zone, the less effective it will be.

The key for Phoenix will be maintaining the same emphasis on defensive rotations in their usual defensive sets that they seem to exhibit in the zone, as the decreasing effectiveness of the zone will ultimately force the Suns to revert to man-to-man defense. If Phoenix can be even moderately successful without the zone, their offense will give them a shot to win Game 4 and perhaps a few more. If not, Game 3 was merely artificial resistance in a series that could be over sooner rather than later.

That was Amar’e Stoudemire, That was the guy who had been playing like the best power forward in the game the last couple months of the season. He was dominant, and that’s what everyone was talking about after Game 3.